The basic love language of quality time has many dialects including: quality activities. At a recent singles event I asked those present to complete the following sentence: “I feel most loved and appreciated by _________ when __________.” They could insert the name of anyone: parent, roommate, coworker, or friend.

One twenty-seven-year-old male inserted the name of his girlfriend and completed the sentence as follows: “I feel most loved by Megan when she and I do things together—things I like to do and things she likes to do. We talk more when we’re doing things. I had never ridden a horse until I met her, and she had never been sailing. I’ve always enjoyed doing things with other people. It’s so neat to be dating someone who is open to trying new things together.”

This young man was revealing that his primary love language is quality time, and the dialect he enjoys most is quality activities. The emphasis is on being together, doing things together, and giving each other undivided attention.

Quality activities may include anything in which one or both of you has an interest. The emphasis is not on what you are doing but on why you are doing it. The purpose is to experience something together, to walk away from it feeling: He cares about me, he was willing to do something with me that I enjoy, and he did it with a positive attitude. That is love, and for some people, it is love’s loudest voice.

Entering into the Other Person’s Interests
Rick grew up on country music. He never actually attended a concert, but the radio was always on and it was always tuned to the country station. For quite some time his dream was to attend the Grand Ole Opry. After he finished high school, he went to the local technical college and trained to be a computer analyst. It was there that he met Jill. Jill had recently moved to his town from Detroit. She was never fond of country music, but she quickly became fond of Rick.

Jill’s dad was an avid car-racing fan, and from her earliest years she had gone to the races with him. When she worked up enough courage to invite Rick to go with her and her dad to a race, she was elated that he accepted. Though he had often watched car races on television Rick had never been to a race,
I had known Rick for a long time. One day shortly after he had been to the race with Jill and her dad, I saw him in the grocery store. He was eager to tell me about the race, but quickly added, “The most exciting thing about the race was being with Jill,” he said. I saw the twinkle in his eye, and I knew that he had feelings for Jill.

Several months later they came in for premarital counseling. One of the first things they shared before we began our session was that the previous weekend they had been to the Grand Ole Opry. It seems that a group from the technical college had gotten together and decided this would be a good way to celebrate the end of the school year. Rick told me about the famous people he had seen, while Jill said, “The most exciting thing for me was being with Rick.” Rick and Jill were demonstrating a fundamental principle. When an activity is to be a means of expressing love, the most important thing will not be the activity, but being with the other person. I was encouraged to see that they were willing to enter into each other’s interests in order to have time together. I hoped that this expression of love would not stop when they got married.

Memories for Years to Come
One of the by-products of quality activities is that they provide a memory bank from which to draw in the years ahead. Fortunate is the couple who remembers an early morning stroll along the shoreline, the spring they planted the flower garden, the time they got poison ivy chasing the rabbit through the woods, the night they attended their first baseball game together, the one and only time they went skiing together and he broke his leg, the amusement parks, the concerts, the cathedrals, and, oh yes, the awe of standing beneath the waterfall after the two-mile hike. They can almost feel the mist as they remember. Those are memories of love, especially for the person whose primary love language is quality time and whose dialect is quality activities.

Whether it’s a dating relationship or merely a friendship, such quality activities are not always easy to orchestrate. It will take careful planning. It may require you to give up some individual activities. It will mean you do some things that you don’t particularly enjoy, but it will give you the pleasures of loving, entering into another’s world, and learning to speak the love language of quality time.

...And you?

• Are you energized when you spend quality time with others, or does it tend to deplete you emotionally?
• With whom have you spent quality time this week? Was your time together primarily quality conversation or quality activities?